The club model of multilateral cooperation and problems of democratic legitimacy

Multilateral cooperation was remarkably extensive, indeed unprecedented, in the latter half of the twentieth century. After World War II a compromise was struck in rich countries that John Ruggie has termed embedded liberalism. ¹ Increasing economic openness became politically feasible in a democratic era through the development of the welfare state, and through a set of international regimes for finance and trade that accommodated the welfare state.